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Google has given raises to thousands of men after an analysis of Google's pay structure found that the company would otherwise be underpaying those men relative to their peers, The New York Times reports. The analysis also led to raises for some women.

Google determines annual pay raises in a three-phase process. First, Google adjusts every employee's compensation based on standard factors like their location, seniority, and performance ratings. Managers can then seek additional discretionary raises for their best-performing employees.

Finally, Google performs a company-wide analysis to determine whether these raises are biased in terms of race or gender. If biases are detected, the disadvantaged workers are given additional raises to eliminate the discrepancies.

"We provided $9.7 million in adjustments to a total of 10,677 Googlers," the company said in a Monday blog post describing the results of the equity analysis.

"Men account for about 69 percent of the company's work force, but they received a disproportionately higher percentage of the money," the Times's Daisuke Wakabayashi writes. "Google said it was important to be consistent in following through on the findings of its analysis, even when the results were unexpected."

In recent years, there has been a lot of concern in Silicon Valley about the opposite problem: women being systematically underpaid relative to their male colleagues.

Of course, it's possible that Google's statistical analysis doesn't capture all factors that could be biasing pay structures against women. Google's analysis aimed to identify employees who are underpaid relative to others in the same job level. But what if the process of assigning employees to job levels is itself biased?

That's the premise of a 2017 lawsuit three women filed against Google in 2017.

"Google has channeled and segregated, and continues to channel and segregate, women on the basis of their sex into lower compensation levels and into less-compensated and less-favorable job ladders and levels," the lawsuit charged.

The Department of Labor has also raised concerns about Google's hiring and promotion practices. "We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," a Labor Department official testified in 2017.

Google has rejected those charges.

If Google managers were promoting men more quickly than equally qualified women, that discrepancy wouldn't necessarily get picked up by a statistical analysis that takes employees' job levels as a given.

Google says it plans to study the company's hiring and promotion processes to make sure that the company encourages gender equity.

1. Google's pay scale was out of whack2. They performed an analysis and implemented fixes according to their findings3. Outside observers are unhappy because many of the people who got raises are men

I mean...I just. I'm so tired of people who think the solution to discrimination is more discrimination. Discrimination is always bad.

You're certainly right that the solution isn't to merely swing the pendulum fully in the opposite direction, but I think the issue here is that the results don't necessarily comport with what we think we know about gender bias as it relates to pay. Since it was a surprising result in that it led to a large proportion of men getting pay adjustments, folks who pay attention to this sort of thing are pointing out that Google's process may have reinforcing biases baked into it.

Nobody should be rushing to either positive or negative conclusions about Google. If we want to have a sane and rational world, we *should* be able to treat this as an ongoing conversation. Google appears to be trying to do the right thing by their workers. Reasonable criticisms of their methodology are raised that are relevant to Google's mission in this case. Google says they'll take it under advisement. As long as that's not just lip service, (and as long as I'm not missing something to consider here) then I think we're seeing a healthy process.

I know a few people who are within this dataset. My impressions of the situation was that the issue didn’t seem to be that women are being paid less relative to their level in-company, but that they aren’t being promoted at the same rate regardless of competence. Glad to hear that they took this first step and are continuing to look at everything to ensure there’s a generally equal process!

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

So by implication you are saying that HR should not ask people how much they want and just tell them what the position pays take it or leave it?

Uhhh, yeah. that would be a whole lot more transparent. It would also force companies to compete more openly for talent. As you would know that Google will pay a 5 year experienced engineer 80k/yr and Apple will pay the same person 85k/yr. (pulled random numbers out my ass for an example). Entire websites like Glassdoor wouldn't exist in order to try and figure out what "fair value" was for a position because everyone would know.

This sounds like an approach ripe for systemic depression of salaries for entire job classes among all companies.

Well we have been dealing with real wage declines in the US for a generation so I am not sure the current system is superior.

If I can't hire a person away from another company without giving pay raises to everyone in that job class at my company, then I'm much less likley to make the hire. If I can't offer a retention raise to prevent another company from hiring someone away without giving everyone in that job class a raise, then I'll let him/her go. Companies will quicly figure out there is no benefit to competing. You can guarantee salary stagnation adn decline even where there otherwise would be competition for resources.

The reasons for salary trends today have little to do with intra-job class equity. Competition for individuals is at least one area where those other influences are offset, taking that away won't help employees.

Without a full demographic breakdown of the people involved, and details of the actual audit process, it would be hard to draw conclusions about what this means for Google's pay processes, and the pay equity situation.

Of course, that's not going to stop people...

There's also that the complaints levelled at Google were that some people were disadvantaged due to the level they were placed at. One of the few facts we have is that this wasn't reviewing the appropriateness of their level and therefore is mostly just a regular backed process happening that's probably not news.

Reviewing pay within banding is easy, I've done it many times (I work within finance at HR companies). Reviewing if someone is within the right banding is often very, very hard. A lot of random decisions are made that are hard to analyse (for example specific skills that aren't covered well by normal job levels).

Banding. I hate banding."I can't give you a better raise because of where you are in the band but I also cannot promote you because we'd have to create a new job code and there is currently a hiring freeze. Even though it would be a job literally created just for you, we'd still have to post it because that's policy. Sorry."Story of my life.

Step 1. In previous years, Google (and other companies) are accused of not elevating enough women to higher-paying positions.

Step 2. Google elevates more women to these positions, without necessarily adjusting the algorithm for how and when they do this. (Now today, they have to re-adjust this algorithm). These women were, perhaps, paid somewhat higher salary than their male peers, if only to keep them on board and highlight that Google was doing something about the problem.

Step 3. The algorithm they DO have now reports that (the by far larger number of) men in those positions are paid less than their female peers, hence this article.

Solution? Readjust the algorithm. Perhaps a new algorithm is needed. Don't want to be evil, now.

Google was started by men. I'd like to see the DOL audit reports on Hufington Post when Arianna Huffington still owned it. Did her company hire a majority of women ? Were they compensated more than their male counter parts ? Or was HuffPo balanced and equal and everyone treated the same ?

A side pondering -- where is the line drawn for equality ? Is it when there is 50/50 men to women ? 50/50 white to black ? 25/25/25/25 white/black/asian/hispanic ?

Or is it when the percentages of those subcultures in the US are represented at the same percentages within the company ? Otherwise the previous 2 questions would mean that there is an unbalanced representation of those minorities in a given company. And if Google and other tech companies that were started by white men are receiving this level of scrutiny then shouldn't companies started by minorities receive the same/ equal amount of scrutiny ?

Just rhetoric to poonder otherwise I have no dog in the hunt.

It sure sounds like you have a lot of concern to troll with.

The proof of bias in hiring is not that the percentage of a specific gender or a specific race is particularly high or low. It's when candidates who are better in other regards are not hired for that particular reason. That's very difficult to prove especially because hiring decisions are often made on a subjective basis and for subjective reasons like "this person would be a better fit for our company culture."

That said, if a company hires a disproportionate number of a given gender or race relative to the hiring pool, regardless of whether that gender or race is a majority or minority, it's suggestive that bias might be present and worth taking a closer look. Usually the hiring pool for a given field in a given region does not exactly match the population proportions so what proportionate hiring looks like will depend on the field and region.

Or another hypotheticalYou work a job that has a huge pool of comparable workers doing the same thing. You are judged to be in the 65th percentile of work quality so you are paid in the 65th percentile of pay. Dont bother asking for a raise because if we gave you one then we would need to bump everyone to be fair. Pay equality effectively nerfs negotiating possibility. And thats not fair.

Why should your pay be based on how well you can negotiate if negotiation is not part of your job duties?

Because functioning in any society depends on your ability to negotiate... and yes your job requires negotiation as well; that's how you resolve disagreements.

No, it doesn't. Try again.

So how, exactly, do you disagreements if you can't negotiate? Even among your friends, if you want to go to the movies and a friend wants to play video games would you attempt to negotiate a compromise (e.g.: "how about we watch the movie today, and play CoD tomorrow?").

Saying "No it doesn't" isn't really much of a argument.

By disagreement I don't mean a debate, mean actions that need to be taken and neither side agrees? Either you convince the other person that their are wrong (or vice versa), or you need to negotiate a compromise.

And yes functioning in any society depends on the ability to negotiate: look at the US federal government. If they could not negotiate few bills would pass and they wouldn't be able to fund anything.

The alternative is to just get everyone to agree with you... but that rare works out particularly well.

The people posting the ponies aren't the ones trying to shut down discussion; those that posted the bad faith or worse arguments are.

aka "anything I disagree with".

Posting a completely irrelevant picture of a pony is in no way comparable to even the most poorly thought out argument. If your thought process is shit and you can't come up with a logical argument to save your life, at least you're still engaging in a discussion. A pony picture isn't even an argument. It's a very transparent attempt to shut down discussion, and the Internet equivalent of yelling "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA " at the top of your lungs.

Oh, and personally, I've see women negotiate harder for good offers than men.

I've seen women who were taller than men, but that kind of anecdotal evidence doesn't disprove the averages. It just says there is a lot of variation.

No argument there. I just originally saw a lot of unsubstantiated comments that seemed to argue that men were better negotiators. Since then, a reference to some research was posted. Anecdotally, I don't agree - but that's just my experience and as you point out - very limited in the overall context.

Like all good economic equality measures, this benefited all workers including women, not exclusively women. So hopefully that's enough for the men's rights idiots to pass over this story and keep their misogyny in check.

HAHA You clearly missed the point. Women...who sued due to wage disparity... were actually the ones getting paid more. It was the exact opposite of what they thought.

As a hiring manager and someone who gives merit increases to people each year, in my opinion pay gap between men and women is mostly the result of differences in negotiation skills. Women tend to be more passive when it comes to salary discussions. There are men who are similarly passive about it, but there are relatively few of them. I'm sorry, but negotiation skills are important in life. If you are not good at it, go get some classes. It will pay handsomely throughout your life. You can learn those skills even if you think you will never be good at it. If you are a woman who thinks her negotiation skills could be better, then invest some time in improving it. Your career will thank you later.

Also, there will never be pay equality, same as there will never be skill equality. You need to be able to reward high performers, and this will always lead to salary inequality.

So you fully admit the pay gap has nothing to do with the merit or skills of the employee.

Your comment is without foundation as, Cadence pointed out a presumedskill difference: negotiating skills. Please note my qualifier "presumed" as it is his presumption, not mine. I offer no opinion for the causes of pay differences as I have no data.

Perhaps you'd care to argue that negotiation isn't a skill, or that men's negotiating arguments are perceived more favorably than women's, or whatever.

Either way, absent data, all of these arguments are political and social, and as such are based in belief, and quite frankly are more religious in nature than scientific.

I would argue that it's not a relevant skill. I'm better at juggling, so since we're rewarding non-relevant skills, should I get more money?

How can you argue that it's a non-relevant skill when it precisely achieves what you desire: increased pay. Unless you are arguing against the preponderance of evidence which clearly indicates that those who negotiate better (or at all) earn more; then you are arguing that you shouldn't have to negotiate.

However, in general, most companies don't want to pay you any more than they have to, and will happily pay you less than the maximum possible. So if your goal is to get more money, then I would argue that negotiation is a pretty relevant skill.

Also not being able to negotiate doesn't mean that you'll earn more, it just means that no one else will either... which, generally, isn't good for the employees since it tends lowers the salary of everyone.

As a hiring manager and someone who gives merit increases to people each year, in my opinion pay gap between men and women is mostly the result of differences in negotiation skills. Women tend to be more passive when it comes to salary discussions. There are men who are similarly passive about it, but there are relatively few of them. I'm sorry, but negotiation skills are important in life. If you are not good at it, go get some classes. It will pay handsomely throughout your life. You can learn those skills even if you think you will never be good at it. If you are a woman who thinks her negotiation skills could be better, then invest some time in improving it. Your career will thank you later.

Also, there will never be pay equality, same as there will never be skill equality. You need to be able to reward high performers, and this will always lead to salary inequality.

So you fully admit the pay gap has nothing to do with the merit or skills of the employee.

Your comment is without foundation as, Cadence pointed out a presumedskill difference: negotiating skills. Please note my qualifier "presumed" as it is his presumption, not mine. I offer no opinion for the causes of pay differences as I have no data.

Perhaps you'd care to argue that negotiation isn't a skill, or that men's negotiating arguments are perceived more favorably than women's, or whatever.

Either way, absent data, all of these arguments are political and social, and as such are based in belief, and quite frankly are more religious in nature than scientific.

I would argue that it's not a relevant skill. I'm better at juggling, so since we're rewarding non-relevant skills, should I get more money?

How can you argue that it's a non-relevant skill when it precisely achieves what you desire: increased pay. Unless you are arguing against the preponderance of evidence which clearly indicates that those who negotiate better (or at all) earn more; then you are arguing that you shouldn't have to negotiate.

However, in general, most companies don't want to pay you any more than they have to, and will happily pay you less than the maximum possible. So if your goal is to get more money, then I would argue that negotiation is a pretty relevant skill.

Also not being able to negotiate doesn't mean that you'll earn more, it just means that no one else will either... which, generally, isn't good for the employees since it tends lowers the salary of everyone.

It's different depending on where you work and the company's philosophy, but those that can take something of a long term view typically don't look at it like this, or at least that's the case where I work. Instead, we do our absolutely best to make our salary competitive and not pay the lowest amount possible. Why? Well because the company tries to adhere to "the employee is our most important asset" and pay people accordingly. There are some benefit areas where they fall flat, but pay is typically not one of them. All of our junior engineers (I mean across the board) got a significant raise this year regardless of performance (although better performers DID get more) because the company felt our entry level salaries weren't keeping pace. Some got a 20% raise BEFORE the merit portion of their raise.

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

One of the inequities in salary negotiations is that research has shown that women are less likely to negotiate, or negotiate as aggressively. This is considered a major factor in gender-based pay disparity. It is highly likely cultural differences exist too.

A conscientious organization will need to find ways to mitigate that difference.

That's not inherently a gender problem though, there are men who are also lousy at negotiating... just as there are people (men or women) who are great at it.

It's possible that is exactly what happen here: Google had attempted to mitigate the problem for women, but not for men. Which could explain why their analysis end-up boosting the salaries of many more men than women.

If they mitigated the problem for women and not for men, they'd have another lawsuit to deal with.

The problem that I referencing is women negotiating less than men do. So an attempt to mitigate that problem might be normalize salaries towards an upper range.

Say the starting pay range for a position is from $80,000 per year to $100,000 per year, but when recruiting you offer the candidates something in the middle automatically $85,000. The good negotiators might get $95,000, whereas the person who accepts the 1st offer ends-up with $85,000.

So if Google decided that they'd adjust everyone to the average negotiated amount (as in they know how much the 1st offer was and what people who negotiated accepted, so they take the average of the negotiated salary)... then it will help everyone who did not negotiate.

So while it would fix the problem of women who might be less inclined to negotiate as much as men do, it also fixes the problem of men won't negotiate either... and they might be more men with poor negotiation skills at Google then women.

As a hiring manager and someone who gives merit increases to people each year, in my opinion pay gap between men and women is mostly the result of differences in negotiation skills. Women tend to be more passive when it comes to salary discussions. There are men who are similarly passive about it, but there are relatively few of them. I'm sorry, but negotiation skills are important in life. If you are not good at it, go get some classes. It will pay handsomely throughout your life. You can learn those skills even if you think you will never be good at it. If you are a woman who thinks her negotiation skills could be better, then invest some time in improving it. Your career will thank you later.

Also, there will never be pay equality, same as there will never be skill equality. You need to be able to reward high performers, and this will always lead to salary inequality.

So you fully admit the pay gap has nothing to do with the merit or skills of the employee.

Your comment is without foundation as, Cadence pointed out a presumedskill difference: negotiating skills. Please note my qualifier "presumed" as it is his presumption, not mine. I offer no opinion for the causes of pay differences as I have no data.

Perhaps you'd care to argue that negotiation isn't a skill, or that men's negotiating arguments are perceived more favorably than women's, or whatever.

Either way, absent data, all of these arguments are political and social, and as such are based in belief, and quite frankly are more religious in nature than scientific.

I would argue that it's not a relevant skill. I'm better at juggling, so since we're rewarding non-relevant skills, should I get more money?

How can you argue that it's a non-relevant skill when it precisely achieves what you desire: increased pay. Unless you are arguing against the preponderance of evidence which clearly indicates that those who negotiate better (or at all) earn more; then you are arguing that you shouldn't have to negotiate.

However, in general, most companies don't want to pay you any more than they have to, and will happily pay you less than the maximum possible. So if your goal is to get more money, then I would argue that negotiation is a pretty relevant skill.

Also not being able to negotiate doesn't mean that you'll earn more, it just means that no one else will either... which, generally, isn't good for the employees since it tends lowers the salary of everyone.

It's different depending on where you work and the company's philosophy, but those that can take something of a long term view typically don't look at it like this, or at least that's the case where I work. Instead, we do our absolutely best to make our salary competitive and not pay the lowest amount possible. Why? Well because the company tries to adhere to "the employee is our most important asset" and pay people accordingly. There are some benefit areas where they fall flat, but pay is typically not one of them. All of our junior engineers (I mean across the board) got a significant raise this year regardless of performance (although better performers DID get more) because the company felt our entry level salaries weren't keeping pace. Some got a 20% raise BEFORE the merit portion of their raise.

Pay bands went up as well.

Which is great, but it's not the case many companies. I've worked with people who earn significantly less than they should because they could not negotiate at all. I'm talking about people who did the same job as me, who earned 25% less. Not that I'm a great negotiator (I'm not)... I just wasn't going to accept a bad a offer.

However increasing salaries in the industry helps everyone involved. If everyone is a better negotiator than me (which isn't hard) and they boost the average salary for everyone in my job role at the company... it gives me impetus to just ask to have my salary normalized to what everyone else is making.

One of the reasons that companies generally don't like employees taking about salary is because it helps to hide what they are worth. If they are paying me more than Ted, but Ted is at least as good as I am, then he should ask for a raise that matches my salary... or he knows what is value probably is on the open job market.

It's also why Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe were successfully sued for their non-poaching agreement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech ... Litigation). They only agreed not to "cold call" each other's employees but that removes the ability of those employees to negotiate better salaries (e.g.: "if you want me to leave this job, then you need to pay me more)... which has the effect of depressing salaries across the industry.

The people posting the ponies aren't the ones trying to shut down discussion; those that posted the bad faith or worse arguments are.

aka "anything I disagree with".

Posting a completely irrelevant picture of a pony is in no way comparable to even the most poorly thought out argument. If your thought process is shit and you can't come up with a logical argument to save your life, at least you're still engaging in a discussion. A pony picture isn't even an argument. It's a very transparent attempt to shut down discussion, and the Internet equivalent of yelling "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA " at the top of your lungs.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

So by implication you are saying that HR should not ask people how much they want and just tell them what the position pays take it or leave it?

Uhhh, yeah. that would be a whole lot more transparent. It would also force companies to compete more openly for talent. As you would know that Google will pay a 5 year experienced engineer 80k/yr and Apple will pay the same person 85k/yr. (pulled random numbers out my ass for an example). Entire websites like Glassdoor wouldn't exist in order to try and figure out what "fair value" was for a position because everyone would know.

This sounds like an approach ripe for systemic depression of salaries for entire job classes among all companies.

You would only see salaries go down if there was less demand for a specific role or skillset. You would see salaries go up as companies would continue trying to compete for a position and the labor force moves around.

Noone says you *have* to hire someone just because they apply for a position. So therefore the companies are being choosy about who they hire by their nature of the interview process. As such, you would still end up with natural competition as someone with valuable skills would be naturally poached from one company to another just by nature of everyone knowing that... e.g. Apple pays more than Google. Of course there is more that goes into a decision to work for a company than just the pay. But as things stand the "thinking" type jobs that these companies are looking for are high value and short supply.

Edit: An employee is the supply... the available jobs are the demand.

Let's put it another way. How do companies that compete on other things survive when they openly post their prices?

You don't go to Amazon's website, see that they have a TV for sale, and the price is fuzzied out... and only after 5 interviews with the company and lots of back and forth do you get to bid for a price on the TV. To you, it looks like a 10k TV, but you don't really know, because you have no way of actually finding out the real market value. You heard some of your friends bought a TV for 10k, so hey, that seems reasonable, why not?

Amazon meanwhile would have happily sold you the TV for 500$, but hey, if you are so willing to give them 10k for it, why not?

You may scoff at the price disparity in my example, but I literally had a guy fresh out of college with no information on what he was worth ask for 35k for a position we were hiring for. Everyone else at entry level makes at *least* 55k most with less than 1 year come in at least over 60k. The company I worked for at the time gave him 45k and he thought he was getting a good deal. Needless to say, he lasted exactly 1 year and then quit and made 80k somewhere else after finding out what his real worth actually was. Give me a break that being more transparent wouldn't help the employee more than anything.

The people posting the ponies aren't the ones trying to shut down discussion; those that posted the bad faith or worse arguments are.

aka "anything I disagree with".

No. People posting bigoted trash, people concern trolling, and people who can't even bother to read the article are not people who deserve a valid discussion. They get ponies, because that's all they've earned.

Like all good economic equality measures, this benefited all workers including women, not exclusively women. So hopefully that's enough for the men's rights idiots to pass over this story and keep their misogyny in check.

HAHA You clearly missed the point. Women...who sued due to wage disparity... were actually the ones getting paid more. It was the exact opposite of what they thought.

Sounds like you didn't read the article. It explains that there are different sources of the pay gap. Wage disparity inside the bands is one aspect of it, but disparity in who's in what band is another, more significant source of it.

As a hiring manager and someone who gives merit increases to people each year, in my opinion pay gap between men and women is mostly the result of differences in negotiation skills. Women tend to be more passive when it comes to salary discussions. There are men who are similarly passive about it, but there are relatively few of them. I'm sorry, but negotiation skills are important in life. If you are not good at it, go get some classes. It will pay handsomely throughout your life. You can learn those skills even if you think you will never be good at it. If you are a woman who thinks her negotiation skills could be better, then invest some time in improving it. Your career will thank you later.

Also, there will never be pay equality, same as there will never be skill equality. You need to be able to reward high performers, and this will always lead to salary inequality.

So you fully admit the pay gap has nothing to do with the merit or skills of the employee.

Your comment is without foundation as, Cadence pointed out a presumedskill difference: negotiating skills. Please note my qualifier "presumed" as it is his presumption, not mine. I offer no opinion for the causes of pay differences as I have no data.

Perhaps you'd care to argue that negotiation isn't a skill, or that men's negotiating arguments are perceived more favorably than women's, or whatever.

Either way, absent data, all of these arguments are political and social, and as such are based in belief, and quite frankly are more religious in nature than scientific.

I would argue that it's not a relevant skill. I'm better at juggling, so since we're rewarding non-relevant skills, should I get more money?

How can you argue that it's a non-relevant skill

Because unless you are a professional negotiator, it is not a skill relevant to performing the duties of the job.

The people posting the ponies aren't the ones trying to shut down discussion; those that posted the bad faith or worse arguments are.

aka "anything I disagree with".

No. People posting bigoted trash [...] They get ponies, because that's all they've earned.

This is the problem I have. You're shutting down the discussion. No one is forcing you to talk to racists or sexists or homophobes. If you don't want to engage or dignify it with a response, don't. But you're not accomplishing anything by posting pictures of ponis. Countering a dumb argument with an intelligent argument will have either no effect or a positive effect (changing someone's mind). It will never have a negative effect. But shutting down the discussion with irrelevant spam only has a negative effect. It discourages on-topic discussion from people who are actually interested in good-faith conversation, and it just makes bigoted people even more bigoted because they think that there's a conspiracy out there by" The MSM" to silence their views with "censorship" (or whatever bullshit it is that they believe).

The people posting the ponies aren't the ones trying to shut down discussion; those that posted the bad faith or worse arguments are.

GOAT-GOAT-GOAT-GOAT-GOAT

If you're dissatisfied with the community here, there's a whole wide Internet open for you to explore.

I haven't been here for over a decade by just throwing up my hands in the air and thinking to myself "there's nothing I can do" every time I see fellow community members act like morons.

In this case, it's entirely conceivable that you could stop whining about ponies and trying to derail the discussion of Google's findings that they were underpaying male employees.

Be the change you want to create.

Can you please quote anything I've written in this thread that falls under these categories?

Quote:

Injecting nonsense, arguments based on blatanly false premises, or general horsecrap and/or assholery are not 'discussion'. They are an abuse of social norms

If you see any of those above things, SIMPLY DON'T RESPOND, downvote, and then hit ignore. No need to derail the discussion and waste people's cellular data for people who are actually interested in a discussion.

I am clearly trying to have a good faith discussion, and I'm being met by... ponies. You are EXACTLY exemplifying what I'm "whining" about.

Ok, for some reason I feel charitable and like there's lessons to be taught, so this time, no pony. I'll go over important concepts, using small words, with key points highlighted.

1: Nonsense is not discussionDiscussion is when two people say things to each other over a common topic. People can disagree, and that's good. People can agree, and that's good. When you start saying things not about the topic, that's when you're starting to be rude. Many people around here call these things 'Logical Fallacies', because they're not about the thing that people are talking about; they're ways of using words, such that logic - thinking about stuff - applies less than feeling about stuff.

2: Ponies are not a punishmentWhen people are being rude, other people react in varied ways. Some people say rude things back. Some people ignore the rude person. I'm different. I call out the fact that the person isn't contributing to a discussion, and then post literally the most un-threatening thing I can think of: a cartoon pony. I - and most good-faith pony posters here - go out of the way to not post any explicit pony-related content (unfortunately, yes, it exists. God damn my eyes.)

The point of ponies is to A) bring attention to bad argument, and B) to signal that things need to calm down. Logical fallacies and verbal tricks are about making people emotional. Being emotional doesn't contribute to a smart discussion. Verbal tricks are also not about good discussion - they're about sabotaging said discussion to some end.

3: We should think about the things we postBecause we should discuss topics using reason, fact, and good-faith argument (we talked about this in the first point), and because emotions damage our ability to make good faith arguments (we talked about this in the second point), the logical conclusion is that, when we're talking about a topic - especially one we feel strongly about - we should focus on making good, factual arguments that reveal more about the topic. This involves a few things:

*: Reputable, widely-trusted sources, and saying what they are.*: Denoting when something is your opinion; opinions are OK, and provide context to your argument and why you're making it.*: Arguing on the merits of arguments, not on the person making the arguments. There's a big difference between saying, "Trump's foreign policy is a disaster because it isolates America", and "Only real Americans agree that Trump's foreign policy is a disaster!"

4: How to deal with criticismIt's been said, "It's much easier for a person to admit that they're right about something, than that they're wrong about something." When someone criticises your arguments, the natural tendency is to get emotional. That won't help. Instead, this is an argument that's part of discussing stuff. Consider their criticism carefully. Think about the facts you have available. If you don't know something, Google it. If you're wrong - I'm not saying you are or aren't - either bring the support your argument needs, or accept the mistake. Doing those things makes you look better. Doubling down on bad arguments, or intentionally making further fallacies, does not make you look good, and makes it more likely that your position will be dismissed.

Some people call this, "Having thick skin". I disagree. This is called "discussing in good faith." We're all fallible, and wrong about things from time to time. It is a good character trait to take cases of being wrong in stride. It reflects poorly when one is wrong, and then seeks to amp up their rhetoric - it doesn't help anyone involved.

5: ConclusionBy this point, you should be able to understand why ponies happen. It's not because someone is saying something that someone else disagrees with. People - like you - get ponies, because instead of actually doing good-faith discussion, you double, triple, or even quadruple down on something that isn't accurate, or fallacious, or manipulative...and other people know enough not to go with it. In the Ars community, instead of being rude to each other, ponies have arisen as a way to signal that someone is arguing badly. Also, more recently, the GOAT-GOAT-GOAT-GOAT-GOAT thing from the AI article.

In the specific case of the person I'm replying to: What appears to be your agenda is that "the ponies are shutting down good-faith discussion." This is not true. Ponies happen in response to logical fallacy, and continual efforts to undermine a thread of conversation - in this case, how Google pays its people.

When you receive a pony, instead of pouting and being upset, take a moment to reflect and see why someone thinks you need a pretty pony. Best case scenario, you've done a terrible job of making an argument. Worst case scenario, someone thinks you're being very insincere. However, by conducting yourself well, using good sources, and other polite ways of conducting conversation - regardless of your viewpoint - you probably don't need to worry about ponies too much.

Besides, serious question - what are cartoon ponies going to do to you anyways?

On average this only ends up being about 910$ per adjustment. A welcome bonus to whoever ends up with it, but with average pay above 80k I'm not sure how much this really indicates massive pay disparities in any direction.

(Average pay can be anywhere from 40k - 180k given my google searches, but in their report they noted level 4 engineers in particular who will probably have pay easily above 120k.)

Averages are of course very fuzzy and can't be relied on for this kind of analysis. Remember the joke about Bill Gates walking into a bar and everyone becoming a millionaire on average. Those "average" millionaires include the bartenders making $12 a hour and for them almost any sort of raise would be significant.

Ok, for some reason I feel charitable and like there's lessons to be taught, so this time, no pony. I'll go over important concepts, using small words, with key points highlighted.

1: Nonsense is not discussionDiscussion is when two people say things to each other over a common topic. People can disagree, and that's good. People can agree, and that's good. When you start saying things not about the topic, that's when you're starting to be rude. Many people around here call these things 'Logical Fallacies', because they're not about the thing that people are talking about; they're ways of using words, such that logic - thinking about stuff - applies less than feeling about stuff.

2: Ponies are not a punishmentWhen people are being rude, other people react in varied ways. Some people say rude things back. Some people ignore the rude person. I'm different. I call out the fact that the person isn't contributing to a discussion, and then post literally the most un-threatening thing I can think of: a cartoon pony. I - and most good-faith pony posters here - go out of the way to not post any explicit pony-related content (unfortunately, yes, it exists. God damn my eyes.)

The point of ponies is to A) bring attention to bad argument, and B) to signal that things need to calm down. Logical fallacies and verbal tricks are about making people emotional. Being emotional doesn't contribute to a smart discussion. Verbal tricks are also not about good discussion - they're about sabotaging said discussion to some end.

3: We should think about the things we postBecause we should discuss topics using reason, fact, and good-faith argument (we talked about this in the first point), and because emotions damage our ability to make good faith arguments (we talked about this in the second point), the logical conclusion is that, when we're talking about a topic - especially one we feel strongly about - we should focus on making good, factual arguments that reveal more about the topic. This involves a few things:

*: Reputable, widely-trusted sources, and saying what they are.*: Denoting when something is your opinion; opinions are OK, and provide context to your argument and why you're making it.*: Arguing on the merits of arguments, not on the person making the arguments. There's a big difference between saying, "Trump's foreign policy is a disaster because it isolates America", and "Only real Americans agree that Trump's foreign policy is a disaster!"

4: How to deal with criticismIt's been said, "It's much easier for a person to admit that they're right about something, than that they're wrong about something." When someone criticises your arguments, the natural tendency is to get emotional. That won't help. Instead, this is an argument that's part of discussing stuff. Consider their criticism carefully. Think about the facts you have available. If you don't know something, Google it. If you're wrong - I'm not saying you are or aren't - either bring the support your argument needs, or accept the mistake. Doing those things makes you look better. Doubling down on bad arguments, or intentionally making further fallacies, does not make you look good, and makes it more likely that your position will be dismissed.

Some people call this, "Having thick skin". I disagree. This is called "discussing in good faith." We're all fallible, and wrong about things from time to time. It is a good character trait to take cases of being wrong in stride. It reflects poorly when one is wrong, and then seeks to amp up their rhetoric - it doesn't help anyone involved.

5: ConclusionBy this point, you should be able to understand why ponies happen. It's not because someone is saying something that someone else disagrees with. People - like you - get ponies, because instead of actually doing good-faith discussion, you double, triple, or even quadruple down on something that isn't accurate, or fallacious, or manipulative...and other people know enough not to go with it. In the Ars community, instead of being rude to each other, ponies have arisen as a way to signal that someone is arguing badly.

When you receive a pony, instead of pouting and being upset, take a moment to reflect and see why someone thinks you need a pretty pony. Best case scenario, you've done a terrible job of making an argument. Worst case scenario, someone thinks you're being very insincere. However, by conducting yourself well, using good sources, and other polite ways of conducting conversation - regardless of your viewpoint - you probably don't need to worry about ponies too much.

Besides, serious question - what are cartoon ponies going to do to you anyways?

This might come as a complete surprise to you, but I completely agree with everything you wrote, and I want exactly the same things as you EXCEPT for point 2 and your last sentence. I'll admit that I got off on the wrong foot by framing my argument as "anything you disagree with". However, this is the harm I see in ponies:A) for serious people who want to seriously discuss things, it wastes data. Some people login to Ars on dial-up or rural Internet (WISP, Satellite, SUPER slow DSL, whatever). Some people login to Ars primarily on their phones, and some of these people (like me) live in countries where data is expensive and unlimited data plans don't exist. You might not realize this butyour last pony photo costs me almost 40 cents if I were to go over my already limited bucket (yes, I actually worked this out). Just a single photo! So please be considerate. I don't have a problem downloading images, the Internet is full of them. I have a problem downloading useless ones that don't contribute to anything. 40 cents just to make an ineffective point. I B) it's an ineffective point because a true bigot or someone who genuinely is ungenuine is not going to be affected by having their bullshit called out on. You talk about emotional responses. This is exactly what trolls thrive on. Getting an emotional response. What is the best way to deal with a troll? Same as the best way to deal with a class clown or a bully. JUST IGNORE THEM. All they want is attention, and if you give it to them, they will stay. If you don't give them attention, they will go away. The norms on the front page are very different from the norms in the forums. In the forums, we ignore trolls and spammers for exactly the reason I mentioned: by giving attention to a spam post or a troll post, you are giving the spammer or the troller more reason to continue their misbehaviour.C) it's also an ineffective point because off-topic images discourage genuine people who want a real, honest discussion based on facts and logic and stuff.

So when you post a pony, you turn off the good people, you turn on the bad people, and you punish the good people who are unfortunate enough to have to pay for every megabyte of data.

(Various critiques, and the thread history, snipped due to the six-quote-limit, and to help save data)

Hestermofet, you're still arguing about the fact that ponies are present when that's neither the point of the article thread, nor of the usage of ponies themselves. The presence or absence of ponies isn't the point.

Ponies are how the Ars community has figured out how to deal with trolling and bad-faith arguments - for the moment. Ignoring trolls does not work, but bringing education and attention to trolling is very effective - entire forms of trolling are rendered ineffective simply by people being aware that a form of rhetoric is insincere.

As to the cost of ponies in certain places? I'm just a forum poster, not a telecom executive; I can't control that. In fact, that goes for most people here, I expect.

We can however help each other. Remember upthread when I said, "Be the change you want to create?" That does much to help. Whining about ponies is not discussing Google's payment practices, or industry payment practices. Rhetorical judo, especially of the sort we see so often here on Ars, is at least as wasteful to your data bill as any pony image will ever be, if not more.

In any event, I don't always post ponies - I think dlux did an analysis of forum posts last year, where the word 'ponies' only cropped up in like 10% of my posts or something. Some people say that means I'm slacking, but I disagree - it means good discussion is the norm, and trolling isn't. The services of pony-wielders like myself simply aren't needed as much as some would think. This makes ponies even less worthy of complaint, especially since they need not apply to you.

So, if you're so concerned about ponies, and the costs ponies have on your data, and good faith argument, then show it with some words and actions - stop talking about ponies! They're apropos of little. What do you think of Google's payment practices? How are things in the nation you live in - for that matter, what nation do you live in?

(Various critiques, and the thread history, snipped due to the six-quote-limit, and to help save data)

Hestermofet, you're still arguing about the fact that ponies are present when that's neither the point of the article thread, nor of the usage of ponies themselves. The presence or absence of ponies isn't the point.

I'm happy to take this to PM if you want. I don't know where else to discuss this, and the topic came up, so I discussed it. But like I said, I'd be satisfied if you just chose photos that were smaller in size, and we don't need to discuss it further, if you want to leave it at that.

Quote:

So, if you're so concerned about ponies, and the costs ponies have on your data, and good faith argument, then show it with some words and actions - stop talking about ponies! They're apropos of little. What do you think of Google's payment practices? How are things in the nation you live in - for that matter, what nation do you live in?

My opinion was already expressed by others in the thread. The algorithm seems to work, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Women in the same position as men on average seem to get paid more, but a larger issue that Google's pay equity algorithm is not addressing is that perhaps women do not get INTO those higher positions as often as men because of the glass ceiling.

As a hiring manager and someone who gives merit increases to people each year, in my opinion pay gap between men and women is mostly the result of differences in negotiation skills. Women tend to be more passive when it comes to salary discussions. There are men who are similarly passive about it, but there are relatively few of them. I'm sorry, but negotiation skills are important in life. If you are not good at it, go get some classes. It will pay handsomely throughout your life. You can learn those skills even if you think you will never be good at it. If you are a woman who thinks her negotiation skills could be better, then invest some time in improving it. Your career will thank you later.

Also, there will never be pay equality, same as there will never be skill equality. You need to be able to reward high performers, and this will always lead to salary inequality.

So you fully admit the pay gap has nothing to do with the merit or skills of the employee.

Your comment is without foundation as, Cadence pointed out a presumedskill difference: negotiating skills. Please note my qualifier "presumed" as it is his presumption, not mine. I offer no opinion for the causes of pay differences as I have no data.

Perhaps you'd care to argue that negotiation isn't a skill, or that men's negotiating arguments are perceived more favorably than women's, or whatever.

Either way, absent data, all of these arguments are political and social, and as such are based in belief, and quite frankly are more religious in nature than scientific.

I would argue that it's not a relevant skill. I'm better at juggling, so since we're rewarding non-relevant skills, should I get more money?

How can you argue that it's a non-relevant skill

Because unless you are a professional negotiator, it is not a skill relevant to performing the duties of the job.

That's a pretty bad straw-man: the question isn't about the duties of the job, it's about your salary and benefits. In fact how much you're paid doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how well you perform the duties of the job either... you could do great work for free (e.g.: volunteer work).

You also seem to be arguing about how you think that things should be instead, of how they are (since it's been proven that negotiation leads to an increased salary). But there is a big different between saying "that you don't think negotiation should be a relevant skill", and saying that negotiation isn't a relevant skill and comparing it to juggling. The former is a reason debate to have, the latter is just plain wrong.

My opinion was already expressed by others in the thread. The algorithm seems to work, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Women in the same position as men on average seem to get paid more, but a larger issue that Google's pay equity algorithm is not addressing is that perhaps women do not get INTO those higher positions as often as men because of the glass ceiling.

That makes a lot of sense; Google's algorithm could probably be tuned to also account for who is in what position. In the shop I work at, women typically enter management positions after a period of time coding, and stay there, but the higher-power people are male.

I imagine - I can't prove this, obviously - that if the Google algorithm were applied to my workplace, a number of calculations would be skewed by the few well-paid males, and women's stats might be skewed by the fact that they're in management positions, but it fails to create good conclusions. The relationship of what people are in what positions isn't accounted for, so women as a class might be well-paid, and maybe even equitably as low-to-mid-level managers. That being said, the fact that women aren't well-distributed through the organization means that we can't really conclude that women in any given position are paid what another man, or even what another woman, is or should be paid.

I think a strong case could be made to improve the algorithm by clustering by similar positions, thus ensuring that people in a position are paid equitably, with a higher degree of confidence than merely "everyone at Google or ${ORGANIZATION}." Going still further, if there is a dearth of women in a given position type - for instance, coders - having the algorithm honestly say, "insufficient statistically significant data" is a valid output. Does it mean there needs to be more women coders? Probably, but that's also not the point of this algorithm.